Speech Cards version 1.1.1 is now available! The highlight of this update is Bing Image Search. Now you can search for images from within the app and import them, making it even easier to create any vocabulary or articulation card you can imagine!

Learn more about all the improvements in version 1.1.1 in our previous blog post here.

Speech Cards is available for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch on the App Store.

Since the first release of Speech Cards last fall, we have had many requests to add the ability to import photos from Google Images or Bing Images. We are very happy to announce that the next update (version 1.1.1) will include Bing Image Search. Access to millions of images will give you the ability to create any card you can imagine! We plan to release the update next week, pending approval by Apple.

Why Bing? Both Bing and Google provide APIs that give excellent search results. Google allows 100 free searches per day, while Bing allows 5000 free searches per month. After the free search allotment is used up, access to the search results are either cut off or a fee must be paid. Based on our user count, we determined that Bing had the best rate for us.

Other changes/fixes are included in this update.

While at CSHA 2013, we noticed many people would press the previous or next buttons many times once the first or last card had been reached. Once you are at the beginning or end of the card list, it is no longer necessary to press the previous or next buttons. To provide a visual cue that you have reached the beginning or end of the card list, the PREVIOUS/NEXT buttons are hidden.

Since version 1.1.0, Speech Cards has been compatible with the iPhone. Through more rigorous testing, we found some issues on iPhones with iOS 5. Version 1.1.1 also includes:

Fixed issues in the Reports and Customize screens that could cause the app to crash on iPhones with iOS 5.

Fixed screen rotation issues on the “Card List”, “Students In Session”, and “Store” screens on iPhones with iOS 5.

We would like to thank all our customers for purchasing Speech Cards. Thank you for suggesting Bing Image Search. We hope this new feature helps you to create new and exciting cards! We highly value suggestions and comments from our customers because we want to make our apps help people improve their speech and language skills as much as possible. Do you have a suggestion for Speech Cards? If so, please leave a comment or send us an email.

We are very excited to be one of the vendors at the annual California Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention, March 7-10. This year the event is in Long Beach, a short drive up the coast from our HQ in San Diego. We are looking forward to meeting speech-language pathologists, audiologists, educators and other vendors.

If you are attending the convention, please stop by our booth. We will be demonstrating our apps, Speak Colors and Speech Cards. We are also having a draw, with free copies of Speech Cards Professional and SpeakColorsHD and iTunes Gift Cards as prizes. Please stop by our booth in the exhibit hall, to try our apps and enter the draw.

For the duration of the convention, March 7-10, Speech Cards Professional is 40% off! Speech Cards is an easy to use, customizable, versatile app for improving speech and language skills.

We are also having a draw on this web site! The prize is one $25 iTunes Gift Card. To enter the draw, complete the Rafflecopter form below. The draw begins at 12 AM PST March 7 and ends at 12 AM PDT, March 11. Good luck and we hope to see you at the convention!

This is a tutorial for the Speech Cards app. Speech Cards is an easy to use, customizable and versatile app for improving speech and language skills. Speech Cards is available for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch on the App Store. In this tutorial you will learn about the basic functionality of the app. This tutorial uses the iPad version of the app in the examples. A future tutorial will show how to customize.

Speech Cards Professional includes 4 decks of cards. On the Home Screen, press on a deck to select it. Multiple decks can be selected. Swipe left or right to navigate to additional decks if they have been added.

Scores for up to 30 students can be tracked. Students can be added and selected on the Students Screen. Press the blue Students button at the bottom of the Home Screen to show the Students Screen.

When you have selected your students and decks of cards, press on the green Start button to begin the session.

Each card shows text and a picture. Press on the text or picture to play a voice recording. In the example above, the voice recording will say “dog”.

At the bottom of the screen is a microphone to record your student practicing their speech.

To the right of the microphone is a button for playing back the student’s practice recording. Please note that the play button is hidden until a recording is made with the microphone.

Navigate to other photos by swiping left or right on the screen or by pressing the left or right arrow buttons.

Speech Cards Professional supports multiple students per session. Click on the person button in the upper right to quickly change students.

Keep score for each student. Full, zero and partial marks can be given.

Student practice recordings are automatically saved to the report for the session.

At the end of the session, a Session Summary is displayed showing the students and their scores.

View Detailed Session Reports for each student. Add notes and listen to practice recordings. Reports can be e-mailed as a PDF. Access this screen by pressing the Reports button on the Home screen.

This is a tutorial for the SpeakColorsHD app. SpeakColorsHD uses colors and photos of objects to help children improve their speech and language skills. SpeakColorsHD is available for the iPad in the App Store. In this tutorial you will learn about the basic functionality of the app. A future tutorial will show how to customize.

Press on the large colored square or photo to hear a voice recording of the color or object. For example, when the large yellow square is pressed a voice recording will say “yellow”. When the photo of the flower is pressed, a voice recording will say “flower”.

At the bottom of the screen is a microphone to record your student practicing their speech.

To the right of the microphone is a button for playing back the student’s practice recording. Please note that the play button is hidden until a recording is made with the microphone.

Navigate to other photos by swiping left or right on the screen or by pressing the left or right arrow buttons.

SpeakColorsHD includes 9 sentence types to choose from. Press on the white button in the upper-left to reveal the choices. Press on a choice to select it.

7 Colors are included. Press the colored-squares along the top of the screen to work on sentences with that color.

Each deck contains 10 cards with text, colorful pictures and voice recordings. The First Words deck contains cards such as “apple”, “banana”, “cat”, and “juice”. The Farm deck contains cards such as “cow”, “horse”, and “tractor”.

The First Words and Farm decks for Speech Cards can be downloaded from the Downloads page.

We are happy to announce that Speech Cards version 1.1.0 has been released. With this update, Speech Cards is now available for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch! Speech Cards helps children with special needs, such as autism, improve their vocabulary, articulation and other communication skills. The app can be tailored to the needs of individual students with customizable text, pictures and audio. Click here to learn more.

One of the best features of Speech Cards is that you can share your creations with others and expand your library of cards. This video shows how cards and decks can be exported and imported in Speech Cards.

Practice describing and categorizing skills with this free deck for Speech Cards. Ten cards are included with categories such as animals, fruit and emotions. The cards feature colorful pictures and audio. Each card has a text prompt with a fill-in-the-blank format, such as “A pig, cow and horse are ___”.

The Categories deck for Speech Cards can be downloaded from the Downloads page.

The RWH Technology team is back from vacation and is very excited about the year ahead. A few things we have planned for 2013 include an iPhone version of Speech Cards, an update to Speak Colors to make it more customizable, and a booth at the California Speech & Hearing Association convention in Long Beach. Happy New Year and best wishes to everyone!

A study by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found that most mobile apps for children are collecting and transmitting personally identifiable information (device IDs, phone numbers, locations and other private data) without the knowledge or consent of the parents.

The FTC reviewed 235 apps from the Google Play and Apple App stores and found some surprising statistics. Nearly 60% of the apps reviewed transmitted the device ID and many shared that ID with a third party, such as an advertising network. 14 apps also transmitted the location and phone number. By collecting personally identifiable information, third parties can create detailed profiles of children and place them at risk. Additionally, over 50% of the apps reviewed included In-App-Purchase or advertising. Only 20% of the apps reviewed included information about their privacy policies.

At RWH Technology we are committed to the privacy and safety of our customers and their children. We created a privacy policy based on the guidelines of the FTC as expressed in the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA). Our apps:

Do not collect/share any user’s personally identifiable information.

Do not contain Social Network Integration or Links to Social Media.

Do not contain ads.

Do not contain push notifications.

May include In-App-Purchases. In such cases, we disclose the In-App-Purchase in the app’s description. The In-App-Purchases are contained on an separate, adult targeted screen.

May include Links to other RWH Technology apps. In such cases we disclose the Links in the app’s description. The Links to other RWH Technology apps are contained on a separate, adult targeted screen.

We include privacy disclosures in the descriptions of our apps. You can find our full Privacy Policy at http://rwhtechnology.com/privacy. We hope this helps you decide if our apps are right for you and your children. Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns.